Friday, January 30, 2015

This is our second installment of bracketology for the 2015
NCAA Tournament and comes as January winds down over this coming weekend.

Before jumping into this week’s breakdown let’s take a quick
look back comparing my projected field last week with ESPN’s Joe Lunardi.Setting aside automatic bids & focusing
on at-large teams Lunardi had in the following:

Tulsa: in my “Next Five Out”

Wyoming: not in my analysis at all meaning I have 43
teams ahead of them for an at-large bid

Louisiana Tech: also not in my analysis, see Wyoming
comment

To summarize I have Tulsa on the fringes of earning an
at-large while the other two teams are not even on my radar as far as earning
an at-large bid.

Here are the three teams I had in:

Washington: in Lunardi’s “Next Four Out”

Davidson: in Lunardi’s “First Four Out”

BYU: not on Lunardi’s list

When I look at each set of three teams I would certainly
lean towards my selections (I guess that’s fairly obvious since it is my
bracketology) over his, but would be interested in hearing from others who
disagree with me, him, or have any comments overall on those six teams.

Now that we briefly looked back at last week’s differences
(which we will do every week) let’s jump into the latest 2015 projection!Below we breakdown each conference into three
buckets initially (with a fourth bucket “life support” coming in our
next installment along with a more detailed breakdown – see last year’s
Bracketology entries to get a feel for next week’s template):

1) Automatic Bid

2) Looking Good [teams highly
likely to play well enough in the regular season to earn a bid]

3) Need Wins [teams that are firmly
on the bubble and will need to play well to close their season]

**Teams are listed in
the s-curve order I see them now within conference**

**To add some color
to each team I will include their SBPI ranking through action on Thursday
January 29.For one bid leagues I will
also show the SBPI ranking of the best team in the conference that was not
selected as my automatic bid entrant to give a feel for their competition**

**Last key to
remember when looking this over – I always lean towards INCLUDING teams in my
breakdown that have any shot at earning a bid; some listed are extreme
longshots but I would prefer including any potential candidates vs. adding them
later out of blue.Leveraging that idea
further I will lean towards keeping teams in say “Need Wins” versus moving them
up to “Looking Good” till I feel certain they are a lock to earn a bid – do not
want to slide teams down levels, only up.Many teams are closer to being left off completely versus moving up a
level at this point in the season**

If OLD
DOMINION does not win their conference tournament they would still BE ALIVE to earn an at-large
bid.The Monarchs have gone 2-0 vs. Top
50 RPI teams: win over RPI #38 LSU on a neutral court & a home win over RPI
#4 VCU.They have also gone 3-1 vs. RPI
#51-100 for a total mark of 5-1 vs. RPI Top 100 teams.

Horizon: Cleveland
State #66 (Green Bay #84)

Ivy: Yale #39
(Harvard #89)

MAAC: Iona #173
(Canisius #151)

MAC: Bowling Green
#124 (Buffalo #65)

MEAC: North
Carolina Central #142 (Norfolk State #215)

Missouri Valley: Wichita
State #15

If
WICHITA STATE does not win their conference tournament they would still RECEIVE a bid, thus taking a
spot away from the at-large field.The
Shockers are currently 7-2 vs. RPI Top 100 teams.

Need Wins: Northern Iowa #76

Mountain West: San
Diego State #33

If SAN DIEGO
STATE does not win their conference tournament they would still RECEIVE a bid, thus taking a
spot away from the at-large field.The
Shockers are currently 6-4 vs. RPI Top 100 teams including a signature win over
RPI #11 Utah earlier in the season.

Keep in mind however that DOES NOT include the upsets we will see during Conference
Tournament week where teams that are LOCKS
from smaller conferences lose a game in their conference tournament and hence use
an at-large bid on themselves.

For the remaining 19 open bids this is the way I see it
currently, which will obviously be very fluid (listed in conference
alphabetical order applying s-curve within conference):

I have included the Top 36 teams in the SBPI this week &
will continue that format going forward.Why?I figured there are 32
automatic bids & 36 at-large bids given out on Selection Sunday – so
including my Top 36 here can give a good feel for if your team has what it
takes to potentially earn an at-large come mid-March.

Here are additional teams of note that did not make the SBPI
Top 36 but were ranked inside Top 36 by at least one of other five sources:

#37 Seton Hall (DUN #27)

#40 Georgia (KP #28, BPI #21, RPI #24)

#41 Texas A&M (RPI #35)

#45 Ole Miss (KP #34)

#48 Davidson (KP #33, BPI #34, SAG #29)

#50 Miami, FL (SAG #25)

#56 Cincinnati (KP #32, RPI #28, DUN #31)

#58 Maryland (KP #30, BPI #24, RPI #14, SAG #23, DUN #16)

#66 SMU (KP #21, BPI #28, RPI #19, SAG #27, DUN #22)

#68 Syracuse (DUN #34)

#69 Indiana (RPI #31, SAG #34, DUN #33)

#72 Colorado State (RPI #29)

#75 Dayton (BPI #29, RPI #26, DUN #25)

#79 Northern Iowa (KP #19, BPI #16, RPI #23, SAG #28)

#90 LSU (KP #35, BPI #36)

#148 Notre Dame (KP #13, BPI #12, RPI #36, SAG #11, DUN #9)

Let’s take a closer look at Notre Dame as they are a big
time outlier compared to the polls, other power indices & record.If you followed my NCAAF SBPI this season you
will most likely draw comparisons between these Fighting Irish and the Florida
State Seminoles, who I had ranked in the mid-50s most of the season – much
lower obviously than any other poll or power index.Why is ND checking in so low?Strength of schedule is the culprit no
doubt.I think the better question is to
ask Ken Pomeroy how he can have the Irish ranked #13 with the following
metrics, per his site:

I do not see how those metrics add up to his ranking.And since his website is really the only one
of the five sources I compare my metrics to that offers up some numbers/support
behind their rankings I cannot compare others to mine.But it’s seems fairly obvious to me his
support does not equal the ranking he gives Notre Dame.

New this week, but an analysis we showed in our NCAAF SBPI
articles that people enjoyed, is the variance report that shows team’s movement
over the last week.Today we will show
team’s that had a 50 spot or greater change in their ranking inclusive of all
conferences:

Team

18-Jan

25-Jan

Change

Prairie View A&M

176

257

(81)

Texas Christian

293

213

80

Southern

134

209

(75)

DePaul

200

134

66

Akron

191

136

55

Lamar

155

210

(55)

Idaho

194

247

(53)

North Carolina Central

72

125

(53)

Northern Colorado

297

244

53

Texas Tech

215

162

53

USC Upstate

216

269

(53)

Wagner

140

193

(53)

Norfolk State

129

179

(50)

As we can see most of the big moves were in the lower level
conferences where a very strong or weak performance can impact a team’s full
season metrics typically more than higher level conference teams. With that point in mind here is another matrix
that isolates Power 6 conference moves over the last week – we will show the
Top 10 changes only (it’s just coincidence all ten of these teams improved in
their ranking; that will not be the case each week):

Team

18-Jan

25-Jan

Change

DePaul

200

134

66

Texas Tech

215

162

53

Washington

182

133

49

Northwestern

169

126

43

Mississippi State

232

190

42

Nebraska

160

118

42

USC

205

165

40

Pittsburgh

96

57

39

LSU

128

90

38

Virginia Tech

281

243

38

Strength of conference & breakdown of Top 36 by
conference:

RANK

CONFERENCE

AVG RATING

TOP 36

1

BE

304.9

5

2

B12

303.9

7

3

ACC

276.6

5

4

SEC

275.6

4

5

B10

273.5

5

6

P12

268.5

5

7

WCC

253.6

2

8

A10

240.1

1

9

MVC

228.7

1

10

HORIZON

221.3

11

AAC

215.0

12

MAC

211.7

13

MWC

209.6

1

14

BIG WEST

203.9

15

IVY

196.5

16

CUSA

193.9

17

OVC

189.1

18

SOCON

182.1

19

BIG SOUTH

179.5

20

SUN BELT

178.3

21

CAA

178.1

22

SOUTHLAND

175.0

23

SUMMIT

175.0

24

BIG SKY

173.1

25

PATRIOT

166.0

26

MAAC

164.3

27

WAC

161.8

28

NEC

159.1

29

AMER EAST

157.6

30

INDEPENDENT

154.3

31

ASUN

153.3

32

MEAC

148.1

33

SWAC

135.4

For this week, and moving forward, I have added in a new
column to this portion of the article that shows the average rating of every
team in a conference.To further clarify
these figures, for example, the Big East, whom retains the #1 spot again, has
an average rating of 304.9 for the 10 teams in their conference.By looking at the first matrix in this
article we can see that 304.9 average rating would fall between the 34th
best team in country Iowa State & the 35th best team in the
country Ohio State.The Big 12 remains
right on the heels of the Big East for the top conference in the country
according to SBPI, falling just 1.0 short of taking over that spot.What is the biggest driver between these two
conferences?The bottom of the Big 12,
namely Texas Tech (#162) & TCU (#213) are both rated well below the worst
Big East team DePaul (#134).In addition
the 2nd worst Big East team is Creighton, who checks in at #65 with
Marquette just one spot ahead of the Blue Jays at #64.So measuring top to bottom the Big East is
the strongest conference in the country – a lot of which is driven by only
having one awful team in the SBPI while many other conferences have multiple
teams below DePaul.

Examining this group closer as far as NCAA Tournament
at-large bids go it’s very unlikely any teams outside the Top 5 (VCU, Wichita
State, Gonzaga, San Diego State & BYU) would earn an at-large bid should
they lose in their conference tournament – especially if that loss came before
the championship game.And of those five
the top 3 are locks to be dancing with or without the automatic bid; San Diego
State would be likely to earn a bid but not a lock should they lose in their
conference tournament; BYU likely needs to at least reach the championship game
in the WCC Tournament to feel good about their chances.Keep in mind there is of course a lot of
games to be played – but for these teams to earn at-large bids a lot of their
work, for good or bad, was completed in the OOC portion of their schedule.

Lastly here are the Bottom 10 teams according to College Basketball
SBPI:

ADJ RATINGS

Team

SUM

RANK

Nicholls State

106.9

342

Liberty

105.3

343

UMBC

103.8

344

Stetson

103.3

345

Maine

95.8

346

Kennesaw State

92.7

347

Grambling State

92.0

348

Central Connecticut State

88.0

349

Florida A&M

63.3

350

Central Arkansas

54.7

351

Only change to the bottom ten teams this week was Nicholls
State moving down to #342 from #325 replacing Texas A&M CC who rose from
#342 to #339 this week.Last week
Nicholls State lost to Texas A&M CC at home by 3, lost to Sam Houston State
62-39 at home but beat Central Arkansas (lowest ranked team in college
basketball each of last two editions) by 10 on road.

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